sensing the winds of change: an introduction to data-driven

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AN INTRODUCTION TO DATA-DRIVEN LEARNING

GREGORY HADLEY

Niigata University of International and Information Studies

Abstract

This paper studies the rationale for allowing Data-driven learning(DDL) more prominence in the EFL classroom. After covering somepertinent issues and developments in the field of pedagogic grammar(PG), the case for DDL will be discussed. The last part of this paperfeatures uses of data-driven learning with Japanese universitystudents, with special consideration given to their reactions to thisnew form of grammar learning.

Introduction

During the mid 1990’s, the English language teaching (ELT) professionunderwent a major paradigm shift away from the focus on communication,and instead began to reconsider the role that form and structure has in educatinglanguage learners. This process started as far back as the mid 1980’s (Swan1985), when some began to question many aspects of CommunicativeLanguage Teaching (CLT).

One difficulty has been in the inability to define exactly what we mean by&dquo;communicative language teaching.&dquo; Jennings and Doyle (1996) state thatCLT as an approach has often become the platform for &dquo; ... unprincipledeclectism, varying from teacher to teacher&dquo; (p. 169). Shortall (1996:3 ) pointsout that the failure to clarify CLT has allowed for a wide range of approaches(PPP/Task-based Learning, Notional-Functional, Silent Way, etc.) to be called&dquo;communicative.&dquo; He also reports that popular applications of many of theseapproaches have tended to reduce or reject the explicit teaching of grammar.Skehan states that this trend in CLT to focus on verbal fluency over formalaccuracy &dquo; ... runs the risk of learners becoming confined to the strategicsolutions they develop, without sufficient focus for structural change oraccuracy&dquo; (1996:30). Batstone also warns that such an unbalanced approachto language teaching can lead to the early fossilization of the learners’ languageskills (1995:229).

© 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. at University of Birmingham on January 9, 2008 http://rel.sagepub.comDownloaded from

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The result has been a renewed interest on the part of many languageteachers in Pedagogic Grammar (PG). Yamamoto-Wilson (1997) writes:

Is it really necessary to reject a grammatical approach in order toespouse a communicative one? Isn’t there a need for a more

rounded approach, giving students a grounding in languagestructure at the same time as developing their communicativecompetence? (p. 6).

Yamamoto-Wilson voices the concern that many language teachers haveexpressed, that is it necessary to consider correcting the imbalance betweenfluency and accuracy caused by the ELT community’s love affair with CLT.However, calls for an increased focus on grammatical form should not bemisinterpreted as a return to the old days of structural grammars, nor as areturn to a grammar-translation approach. What is currently being consideredin PG has been motivated by the exciting developments in the field of corpuslinguistics over the past several years.

This paper begins by tackling some misgivings that language teachersand learners have when thinking about the subject of grammar, and then moveson to discuss some recent issues in Pedagogic Grammar. Special attentionwill then be given to one practical application of PG, which is known asData-Driven Learning (DDL). The final part of this paper discusses a anattempt to use DDL in limited circumstances with a class of beginning JapaneseEnglish language learners.

The Grammar Stigma

Even today, not all teachers and students would instantly welcome aresurgence of pedagogic grammar in TEFL. Kerr (1993) found in his surveyof 100 teacher trainees that attitudes toward grammar ranged from viewing itas an abstract set of rules, to expressing feelings of terror. Similar sentimentsare found in Chalker (1994), who notes that many classroom teachers equategrammar with the acquisition of some set of rules - rules that are at timescontradictory and at other times confusing. In Japan, a survey of thepreferences of 572 English language learners showed that grammar was rankedas the least favorable item for study in a language lesson. They opted forconversation classes with native speakers who avoided grammaticalexplanations in favor of speaking &dquo;practical English&dquo; (Ryan 1996:119).



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This implies that grammar as a concept means different things to differentpeople. The apparent aversion to grammar that many teachers and studentsfeel relates to the negative impact of past approaches to teaching the subject.For teachers who speak English as their first language, grammar is oftenconnected to Structuralist Grammars, while in Japan and many other countries,it relates to the Grammar Translation approach (GT).

Most native English speakers were required to study structural grammarsystems developed by Americans in the 1930’s (Chalker 1994, Shortall1996). Grammarians at this time attempted to discover the rules governingthe English language through scientific procedures. Understanding thesystems they developed involved memorizing a complex system of rulesand the diagraming of sentences. Tonkyn (1994) relates how the influenceof structural grammar went through a steady decline by the late 1960’s.Linguists and educators alike disagreed on the best way to teach grammar,and years of research advised against the teaching of structuralist grammarseither to native speakers or second language learners (DeBoer 1959,Braddock et al. 1963, Elley et al. 1976, Hillocks 1986, Hillocks and Smith1991).

In Japan, grammar teaching is associated with Grammar Translation(GT). Introduced to Japan in the late 1800’s, GT has survived many attemptsto replace it with modern pedagogic methods. Although the Ministry ofEducation is attempting to change this practice, Grammar-Translationremains the principal method of language instruction to this day by JapaneseEnglish teachers (Doyle, 1994, Law, 1995, I-Iadley, 1997). A peculiar featurein the ideology used to justify GT in Japan is the popular notion that nativespeakers of English are unable to teach grammar. Not only do most nativeEnglish-speaking teachers lack the skills necessary to lecture in Japaneseon grammatical points, it is commonly thought that native English speakersuse the language without an explicit knowledge of the rules that governthem. In an odd twist of fate, native English teachers in Japan areoccasionally discouraged from teaching aspects of their own language -

aspects thought to be better understood by those who sometimes speak andwrite English with limited proficiency (Wada and Cominos, 1995). However,recent developments in PG differ significantly from these outmoded formsof language learning. Innovative pedagogic grammars, such as Data-drivenlearning (DDL) are suggesting that grammar can once again be a relevantand engaging resource for second language learners.



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Pedagogic Grammar: A Definition

A common sense definition for PG would probably be construed as&dquo;grammar for teaching.&dquo; In actuality many definitions have been introducedfor pedagogic grammar. For example, Chalker’s (1994) definition (which isbuilt upon the work of Corder, 1975, Greenbaum, 1987 and Dirven, 1990)defines pedagogic grammar as a systematic study of the language which:

. can be for reference or for course work;

. could be comprehensive but will probably be more modest in its aims;

. will draw attention to rules, thus probably combining prescription withdescription;

. will help foreigners to learn a language and/or help mother-tonguespeakers to understand their own language;

. can be either for learners or for teachers (p. 34).

My definition builds upon, but differs significantly from that of Chalker’s.I propose that PG is a modest reference which can be used for course work,which principally draws attention to language patterns. It can be used byteachers, native speakers and second language learners to gain insight intoand better utilize the target language.

This definition suggests that grammar involves &dquo;doing&dquo; and &dquo;autonomousdiscovery&dquo; much more than &dquo;being told about.&dquo; Chalker’s definition, aswith many others, still assumes that grammar is a product found in a bookof rules or a set of reference materials. However, there are questions aboutwhether or not such a rigid view can do justice to the complexity of thelanguage.

Product and Process Approaches to Teaching Grammar

Much of this section is indebted to the work of Rob B atstone (1994, 1995),who has written extensively on product and process approaches to teachinggrammar. The distinction between the two is frequently discussed when PGis considered as a second language learning resource. Product approachesare those that carefully present specific aspects of the language for the students.Process approaches encourage creativity and self-discovery by students asthey experiment with the language. Structuralist grammars and GT are extremeexamples of a product approach, while Task-Based and CLT approaches



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originate from process view of grammar learning. These pedagogic points ofdeparture are frequently pitted against each other in the literature, but Batstone( 1994:71 ) rightly points out that, except for the extreme versions of productand process approaches, the conservative application of either view has certainadvantages.

Strengths and Weaknesses of a Product Approach

Batstone (1995) contends that a moderate product approach provides aclear framework in which to study. It encourages students to notice variousstructures in the target language, and isolate these items to maximize theiruse. This gives some learners &dquo; ... a strong sense of position and direction,and this in itself can generate a much needed feeling of security and purposewhich can have a motivating effect&dquo; (p. 226).

Few could disagree with these observations, but can we be certain thatthe structures and items isolated for the learners are in fact adequate andauthentic? Lewis (1994) best summarizes the main reasons why many seethe product approach to pedagogic grammar as basically flawed:

. Much of the grammar rules that are taught are inaccurate or plain wrong.

. The rules which are taught are frequently incomprehensible to thestudents who are taught them.

. Failure to understand abstract meta-language and rules producesunnecessary failure.

. There is no research evidence that explicit knowledge of grammar aidsacquisition of the grammatical system.

. Most tellingly, grammar is not the basis of language acquisition, andthe balance of linguistic research clearly invalidates any view to thecontrary (p. 133).

What we normally see in a product approach are lopsided, half-truedescriptions of only the simplest parts of language &dquo;fragments.&dquo; Teachinggrammar as a product simply cannot do justice to the complexity of thetarget language. They are the products of, as Johns (1994) puts it, &dquo; ...

intuition-based ’armchair’ linguistics - myths and distortions that are tooeasily perpetuated from one generation to another of dictionaries, grammarsand coursebooks&dquo; (p. 30). What is more, it is not certain that learners learnby mastering one grammatical item before moving onto the next.



104

Strengths and Weaknesses of a Process Approach

Nunan’s task-based textbook series, Atlas (Heinle and Heinle, 1995) is

typical of a process approach to PG:

The grammar tasks are also designed to involve the learners inactively thinking how English works. Learners are not givengrammar rules to memorize and apply; they are invited instead touse the examples and models in the material to recognize languagepatterns, and work out the language rules for themselves

(p. xxiii).

The advantage to this approach is that it encourages students to takeresponsibility for their language learning, with the teacher in the role of afacilitator. Learners begin to recognize language patterns for themselves,and then to experiment with the language. Tasks are presented to helpstudents begin speaking and writing the language as soon as possible. Someof the main aims in a process approach, therefore, are a focus on meaning,increased fluency in spoken and written discourse, as well as a heightenedawareness of the lexicalized &dquo;chunks&dquo; of language which can facilitatecommunication (Widdowson 1989). A process approach views languageacquisition as organic in nature, meaning that mastery of the target languagebegins with imperfect use of a number of skills. These skills appear toimprove slowly with increased use, discovery and the indirect guidance ofthe teacher (Long, 1988, quoted in Skehan, 1995).

Nevertheless, we saw in the beginning of this paper that many researchersnow feel that too much of a focus upon meaning will bring early gains in thelanguage learners’ ability to &dquo;get their ideas across,&dquo; but over time, many failto move to a higher level of proficiency. To illustrate this point, consider the.following task (see Figure One), which is a common activity used in manyJapanese eikaiwa (English Conversation) classes.



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Figure 1: Typical Story-Telling Task(Pictures from Corel, Inc. 1996. The task is mine)

In a typical class, the teacher might warm up by asking the students tobrainstorm about their daily routines. After filling out a worksheet reviewingcertain lexical items deemed important by the teacher, the learners wouldthen receive a card containing the information in Figure One, and beencouraged to tell their partner the story of Mr. Bloggs without showing hisor her partner the card. The following is the sort of discourse commonlyheard in a class of intermediate Japanese students who have been studyingEnglish for more than ten years. The Japanese interjections are written initalics with translations in parentheses:

Eto ne (Erm, Right}...He get up in morning...He...he...read...readsthe newspaper but ... ano ... nandake ... Aa! Wakatta! (erm...whatwas that...Oh yeah!) He sit with his wife, but he very tired, sohe sleep and holding the newspaper. Ano...(erm) So he go to work,but he is not working. He...ano...(erm) he put picture on his deskand he eating a candy. I think he is a lazy man.

Understanding what the student was talking about would be difficult if wedid not have the pictures in front of us. Quite often with monolingual classes inJapan, students quickly abandon speaking in English to speak in their nativelanguage in order to clarify what they are talking about in the task.



106

Data-driven Learning: Striking the Balance Between Product and Process

Approaches

What is currently being contemplated in PG is some middle groundbetween the product and process approaches to teaching grammar. Batstone(1994:99) feels that most attempts to bridge this &dquo;critical gap&dquo; often end witha focus on product teaching, with no real movement toward process work.One possible way to bridge this gap might be-found in Data-Driven Learning(DDL).

Johns ( 1991 a) writes that the &dquo; ... language-learner is also, essentially, aresearch worker whose learning needs to be driven by access to linguisticdata - hence the term ’data-driven learning’ (DDL) to describe the approach&dquo;(p. 2). Data-driven learning studies vast databases of English text (corpora)with software programs called concordancers, which isolate common patternsin authentic language samples. It is essentially a new form of grammaticalconsciousness-raising (Rutherford, 1987) that attempts to move our learnersto move along the pedagogic continuum from product to process (see FigureTwo). While still very much a new methodology, DDL appears to utilize thestrengths of both product and process approaches to teaching grammarsuccessfully.

Figure 2: A Pedagogic Continuum from Product toProcess Grammar Learning Through DDL.

Adapted from Batstone (1995).



107

DDL draws from process teaching in that it sees grammar as a flexiblesystem of recurring and interrelated prototypes rather than a static set of rules.Leech (1994) calls this a &dquo;fuzzy&dquo; view of grammar that draws from thePrototype Theory in cognitive psychology (cf. Rosch, 1975) and is closelyrelated to the Schema Theory (Cook, 1997). The Prototype Theory states thathumans recognize reality in abstract types. For example, the prototypicaldog for an American might be a brown four-legged canine with short hair,rope-like tale, long nose and standing about 50 centimeters in height. Ofcourse, dogs vary widely from this norm, yet we still recognize them as dogsbecause the prototype allows for variety in the identification process.Langacker (1991) suggests that the prototype theory can be applied to PG.He feels that grammatical groupings are prototypical in nature, and shouldnot be seen as lists of inflexible rules.

This view of the grammar system is, according to Leech (1994:19-20)&dquo;organic&dquo; in nature, not mechanistic. A DDL approach suggests that grammarlearning should consist largely of consciousness raising activities rather thanthe teaching of rules. Consciousness raising (CR) is defined by Rutherfordand Smith (1988) as &dquo; ... the deliberate attempt to draw the learner’s attentionspecifically to the formal properties of the target language&dquo; (p. 107). This iswhy in DDL learners are not seen simply as recipients of knowledge, but asresearchers studying the regularity of the language. Teachers help the learners’research without knowing in advance what patterns they will discover. ADDL approach expects learners to get a &dquo;feel&dquo; for the language by personallyexperiencing a focused study of the target language’s organic consistencies(Chalker 1994, Johns 1991).

While the learner’s own discovery of grammar is central to DDL, the

approach also draws from product teaching in that it provides authenticlanguage material for study. A main shortcoming of earlier productapproaches was that they used idealized and often contrived sentences toteach the language. Data-driven learning brings to the class abundantexamples of authentic language samples that can be studied and exploitedin many ways. Supporters of DDL are writing an increasing amount ofmaterial showing how data from corpora and concordancers can be used inthe classroom (Tribble 1996, Kettemann 1995, Johns 1994, Tribble andJones 1990).



108

How Data-Driven Learning Works

Data-driven learning is very much a &dquo;research-then-theory&dquo; method ofstudying grammar. Language learners start with a question, and then come totheir conclusions after analyzing the corpora with a concordancer program.&dquo;What the concordancer does,&dquo; according to Tribble ( 1990:11 ), &dquo;is make the

invisible visible.&dquo; Concordancers isolate frequent patterns in the targetlanguage. Using a format called keyword-in-context (KWIC), languagelearners can easily focus on the main item of study, which will be situated inthe center of the page. Often during the process of study, learners will becomeaware of other language items that collocate with the item they are researching(see Figure Three).

Figure 3: Example of Kwic citations showingcollocations with the word powerful

(Collins COBUILD, 1995).

One example of DDL’s potential as a pedagogic resource will suffice. InJapan, language learners still memorize sentences such as &dquo;The food was

eaten by me.&dquo; However, such a sentence would strike most native speakersas odd. Instead of trying to explain to learners why it is odd simply frominsight, we can direct our students to look at tangible examples from thecorpus. Using a corpora/concordancer package (Collins COBUILD EnglishCollocations, 1995), they find that &dquo;eaten&dquo; does in fact collocate most

commonly with the word &dquo;food.&dquo; The learners are then provided with thefollowing samples taken from COBUILD’s Bank of English (see Figure Four).They may then notice how the authentic language samples differ from theirusage of the word &dquo;eaten.&dquo;



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Figure 4: Sample of eaten as it collocates with food.(CollinsCOBUILD 1995).

Afterwards the learners can be encouraged to complete writing and/orspeaking tasks based upon this new linguistic knowledge. In this way, theteacher moves from preselecting and manipulating the text for the learnersthrough tasks, to regulating their language, to an ultimate abdication in whichthey are allowed to generate their own language. When they come to a pointwhere they have new questions, the research process will start all again (seeagain Figure Two).

Where to get Corpora and Concordancers

Obviously most learners will not have access to a computer that containsa corpus or concordancer software, so it will usually be up to the teacher todo the primary data gathering. The first thing a teacher will need is a generalcorpus. The largest general corpora can be found in COBUILD Project andthe British National Corpus (BNC) in the United Kingdom. Both are therepositories of hundreds of millions of words taken from books, radio and



110

TV broadcasts, newspapers and spoken English (both formal and informal).However, this data is only available to a few researchers. Language teacherscurrently must build their own corpus or purchase a corpora package availableon CD ROM.

Building one’s own corpus has certain advantages. In order to do this,language teachers will need a computer, OCR scanning software, and one ofthe many concordancing software packages out on the market. For example,for the IBM there is Longman’s MINI-CONCORDANCER (Tribble, 1996),and MICROCONCORD from Oxford University Press (Murison-Bowie,1993). FreeText Browser, written by Mark Zimmerman, and Conc. 1.70 fromthe Summer Institute of Linguistics in Dallas, are available as freeware onthe Internet for Mac users. Detailed information about these programs can be

found in Ball (1996).

Armed with an OCR scanner and one of these programs, a teacher can

build his or her own corpus, store it in a home computer, and use the data

according to the needs of the learners. Especially for teachers and studentsworking with a specific genre of writing, such as scientific papers, the DDLapproach can effectively:

...cut out the middleman as far as possible and to give the learnerdirect access to the data, the underlying assumption being thateffective language learning is a form of linguistic research, andthat the concordance printout offers a unique way of stimulatinginductive learning strategies - in particular the strategies ofperceiving similarities and differences of hypothesis formationand testing (Johns, 1991b:30).

Unfortunately in many countries, schools do not have the money topurchase the software or equipment needed for such an enterprise. Forexample, most Japanese EFL departments will not gamble on a new teachingmethod unless they are certain of success. Even if the equipment is available,often teachers do not have the time necessary to scan hundreds of pages of

text in their computers.

Most teachers and learners must look for other alternatives in order to

begin using DDL in their classrooms. If they have access to a personalcomputer, Oxford University Press produces several CD ROMs that can beused with the MICROCONCORD package (Tribble 1996). The COBUILD



111

dictionary and Collocation Database have also come out on CD ROM(HarperCollins 1995). These come with concordancer software built into alarge and general database. This is handy for busy teachers who are interestedin DDL, but need an instant, well-rounded corpus with which to work. Manyteachers who work overseas may not have a PC or Mac, so shorter printversions in the form of resource books which use the KWIC format have alsobeen developed by HarperCollins. This means that DDL can be used byteachers and students even in technologically-disadvantaged environments.

But Can DDL Work with Beginners?

The main argument against the DDL approach is that it is just too difficultfor most students (Willis, Shortall and Johns 1995:67). Johns (1991a) reportsthat teachers often lack confidence in their learners’ ability to handle DDL:

Talking about the DDL approach with other language teachers Iam sometimes reproached that while this way of language-teachingby stimulating student questions and by doing linguistic researchin the classroom on a cooperative basis may be very well forstudents as intelligent, sophisticated, and well-motivated as oursat Birmingham University, it would not work with students asunintelligent, unsophisticated and poorly-motivated as theirs

(p. 12).

Johns teaches postgraduate overseas exchange students. Most EFL teacherswork with learners who are at a more basic level of language proficiency.Would DDL work with beginners studying in their native country? Wouldthey find DDL interesting?

When discussing this prospect with my colleagues in Japan, they assuredme that the answer was a definite &dquo;no.&dquo; Such an experiment, they said, wasdoomed to failure. I was reminded that native English-speaking teachers couldnot teach grammar. And because there is a wealth of &dquo;angst literature&dquo; thathas been written by expatriate teachers depicting the teaching experience inJapan as overwhelmingly discouraging (cf. Cohen 1995, Brown 1993), it

was with hesitation that I decided to try using DDL with my students.

I chose a group of beginners and opted for a workbook instead of acomputer with concordancer software. I felt this ultimately would representthe true conditions in which many expatriate language teachers work. All



112

these moves seemed to be necessary risks to take in order to find out

Concordance Samplers 2: Phrasal Verbs. Helping Learners with Real English,by Malcolm Goodale (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995. Pp. 64. ISBN0-00-370939-6), was tested for one month. The book is part of a series of

pedagogic grammars that include the Collins COBUILD Dictionary of PhrasalVerbs and the COBUILD Phrasal Verbs Workbook. It contains photocopiableactivities that uses the KWIC format, and focuses on the ten most common

phrasal verbs and sixteen most commonly-used particles in English. The mainactivities consisted of a series of consciousness-raising activities and Identify-Classify-Generalise techniques (Johns, 1991a:4}. Concordance Samplers alsocontains a photocopiable needs test that identifies the verbs and particleswith which the learners are having problems. Students can then refer to thesection that explains common uses of the particles. There are also forty-fivepages of concordance samples taken from unedited authentic materials in theBank of English. Two other sections in the book include fill-in-the gap andreferencing activities where students must interact with the data in theconcordance.

While stated to be for intermediate students, Concordance Samplers 2seemed better suited for students in European countries, whose educationalsystems already stress authentic exposure to English. My fear was thatConcordance Samplers 2 might be too difficult for most Japanese&dquo;intermediate&dquo; students, and thought it should only be attempted with verymotivated and advanced students.

Subjects

The class chosen for the project consisted of a group of first year studentsfrom the Economics Department at Niigata University, a national universityon the Northwest coast of the main Japanese island of Honshu. The teachingconditions in this class, both environmental and attitudinal, are typical for aJapanese university (cf. Wadden, 1993). Classes are virtually unheated,unairconditioned rooms with no access to computers or any but the mostbasic of audiovisual equipment (e.g., a cassette recorder). For most Japaneseuniversity students, this is the last English class they will ever take. The classin this study consisted of twenty-five students, thirteen males and twelve



113

females. They met ninety minutes per week on Fridays, from 10:30 a.m. tonoon. Since students are allowed by the university to be absent up to 33% ofthe total classes (and much more excused absences for club activities), classattendance is often sporadic. This sample also included two exchange studentsfrom Malaysia, one male and one female, both of which were highly-motivated. Except the two Malaysian students, the written and spokencommunicative ability of the class was roughly at the level of false beginners.

Attitudes toward Grammar

Before introducing the DDL approach, I administered a small survey tounderstand this group’s this group’s attitudes toward grammar better. Twentystudents participated in the survey (five students were absent). The questionswere written in both English and Japanese to assure full understanding. Theywere asked to express their feelings without reservation, and were assuredthat the survey was not a test.

1. I think studying grammar will help improve my English ability.

2. I think that studying grammar is interesting.



114

3. I think that native English speakers are able to teach grammar.

4. When you think about grammar, what is the first word that comes to yourmind?

Table 1: Student Attitudes Regarding Grammar Before Starting DDL. 20Surveys Tabulated.

While most of the class was decidedly negative in their attitudes towardgrammar, a significant number (35%) of the class found grammar study (whichmeant for them Grammar-Translation study) to be somewhat interesting (seeTable One). This sample also seemed to believe that the mastery of grammar,while difficult, would improve their language skills. This sample also leaned



115

toward allowing a native English teacher to teach grammar. The attitudesexpressed in this group were not as extreme as I had been led to believe bymy colleagues.

DDL in the Classroom

Encouraged by the results of the survey, I spent most of a class sessionintroducing the students to the ideas of DDL by using simple English andhumorous pictures on handouts. The class also received the photocopiablematerials and activities found in Concordance Samplers 2. In the space of amonth, we did the needs test, and several general exercises. At first, thestudents were terrified at seeing pages full of English words. Manyscrambled furtively for their dictionaries. While allowing and encouragingthe use of dictionaries, I also urged the students to focus upon the patternsin the middle of the page, not to translate every word they didn’t understand.

I walked around the class and worked with students as they studied theconcordance materials and did the exercises. All the students, even the oneswho normally seemed least motivated were working intently on theactivities. This observed interest in DDL was encouraging - especiallysince my colleagues warned that it would be a pedagogic disaster.

Response to DDL

After one month, I administered another survey to find out what thestudents thought about this form of pedagogic grammar. As before, I urgedstudents to express their true feelings regarding the month’s study. The surveywas again written in English and Japanese to ease understanding. Most studentswrote their answers in Japanese. As Table Two shows, the sample did feelthat DDL could help in improving their English ability. They found thisapproach more interesting than traditional GT methods of learning. Thefindings also seem to suggest more confidence that a native English speakercan teach this form of pedagogic grammar.



116

1. I think that studying grammar as we have for the last month will helpimprove my English.

2. I think that studying grammar as we have for the last month is interesting.

3. I think that native English speakers are able to teach grammar as wehave studied for the past month

4. When you think about the way we have studied grammar for the pastmonth, what is the first word that comes to your mind?



117

5. What do you think is the main strength of this approach?

6. What do you think is the main weakness of this approach?

Table 2: Student attitudes towards Data-driven Learning after One Month



118

Questions four through six were open-ended, so all the data could notbe presented here. We can see from question four that the subjects foundDDL interesting, but the newness of the approach was confusing for some.Others found it complicated or difficult. Nevertheless, in the opinion ofthis group, the main strength of this approach was the exposure to examplesof &dquo;real&dquo; English (as opposed to the English in textbooks). Some found it

enjoyable while others mentioned getting a &dquo;feel&dquo; for the language. This

may mean that consciousness-raising was taking place for several in thissample.

These results seem to imply that authentic exposure and consciousness-raising were received positively by this sample. This was especiallyencouraging for me, since I knew this class to be one that avoided takingrisks in language learning. Comments to question five included: &dquo;I was

able to put two things together that I already knew to learn something new.Thank you for teaching me this new type of grammar&dquo;; &dquo;It help(s) me toimprove any grammar in a very interesting way that I’ve never did before&dquo;;and &dquo;Even people who don’t like English might like to try doing this.&dquo;

However, this sample also found DDL to be overwhelming at times.&dquo;Difficult&dquo; was the most commonly-stated weakness in question six. Manyalso found the concordance style of only presenting part of the sentencesdisturbing. Many felt this made the presentation of the phrasal verbsincoherent. Not being able to read the entire sentence made understandingthe context of the verbs and particles difficult. Some criticisms were: &dquo;The

sentences are incomplete, so they are incoherent&dquo;; &dquo;There are so many

English sentences ... its overwhelming&dquo;; and &dquo;It’s a little difficult to do

because it is so new. Also, you need to understand the meaning of the wordsbefore you can really do this.&dquo;

Implications for Teaching

It is idealistic to expect that any group of students can suddenly changetheir minds about everything they have learned about grammar and comeover to a DDL approach in the space of only one month. It was partly due tothis short period of exposure that I did not test them on specific items to seehow much they may have learned. Yet overall, the attitudes toward DDLtended to be more positive than negative. In class the students were observedas challenged, motivated and on task. Although effort is not rewarded in



119

the Japanese university system, (classes are essentially on a pass-fail system),these students worked hard to complete the tasks. As experienced classroomteachers know, students who are interested in a subject and engaged withthe tasks often have a better chance of learning.

If DDL could be given equally-positive exposure in Japan and otherpedagogically-conservative countries, it could eventually have extensiveeffects on our roles as teachers and our classroom teaching materials. I

found more time to go around the class quietly and help each studentaccording to his or her personal needs. Several classroom experiences leftme convinced that teachers could indeed serve in the role of research

organizer, and that the students had the potential of becoming better linguisticresearchers than the teacher (Johns, 1991a).

For example, once a student asked me about a certain frequency ofcollocations with a phrasal verb. Before I could stop myself, I gave a studenta ridiculous rule that I felt at the time would explain the situation. Thestudent looked at me for a moment, blinking in a cool, unimpressed manner.She then went on to produce evidence from the concordancer about whymy rule was unsound! Embarrassed but happy that the student made thisobservation, I congratulated her on her discovery and apologized for myblunder. This experience impressed upon me the potential of data-drivenlearning more than anything else.

A DDL approach suggests a move away from unnatural, &dquo;simplified&dquo;textbook English, and allow for a greater use of authentic materials. Data-driven learning can never replace the experience and intuition of teacher,but an informed use of the method will help many to reflect up and reconsiderthe way grammar is traditionally taught in many language classes acrossthe world. However, we must find ways to make DDL more visually-palatable for students who are accustomed to colorful, professionally-packaged textbooks. We must also find more ways to help students feelcomfortable with the KWIC display method.

Provided the students understand the context in which the materials are

used even beginners can work with unedited materials in a limited way.Despite the difficulties with vocabulary, this sample found that workingwith real English was more motivating, but perhaps the words to beemphasized in the concordancer could be highlighted with different colors.



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To combat the criticism some students had about DDL being incoherent, aset of concordance lines for &dquo;impression&dquo; could be displayed, followed bycomplete sentence examples for comprehension. It might also be helpful,when designing DDL-based materials for beginning students, to presentfewer examples so as not to overload and perhaps demotivate some students.Another option would be for the development of a beginner’s corpus that ismore limited to the most frequent lexical forms.

Conclusion

More research will be necessary to determine if a DDL approach actuallyfacilitates language learning after the initial stage of consciousness-raising.If it could be shown that the DDL approach is not only engaging, but alsoan effective form of language learning, it would be a major step towardestablishing it in ESL/EFL classrooms. While I have no hard evidence tosupport my claim, I feel that many learners in this study did learn something.At least one student asked for information for ordering other COBUILDmaterials for further private study. Others in class also seemed interested infollowing through with this method outside class. The fact that students ina Japanese university environment show interest in studying samples ofauthentic language outside class leads me to believe that DDL can workbeginning EFL students, even for those in less-than-ideal teachingconditions. It is hoped the results of this study will encourage others toexperiment with data-driven learning in their classrooms, either as a mainemphasis or alongside a standard classroom text.

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